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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1978-08-09, Page 7THE BRUSSELS POST, AUGUST 9, 1978 — A lot of work's involved Blyth behind the scenes By Alice Gibb When the actors at the Blyth Summer Festival take their bow at the end of a performance, there's another important group of people festival audiences never see. This is the crew who work anonymously behind the scenes to create the environ- ment for the play and ensure that everything runs smoothyly for the cast during the actual performance. The crew includes the set designer, production manager, the stage manager, costume mistress and the lighting technicians. Although it's a fallacy to think the crew behind the scenes are frustrated actors who couldn't make it, most behind-the- scenes workers admit they wouldn't mind a little more recognition. The irony is, if they've done theft job Well, then the audience is likely completely unaware that they exist. Tigger Jourard is one of two stage managers employed at the Blyth Festival this summer. She explains her role as "ensuringethat the director's intentions are brought to the stage." Or, even more succinctly, a "stage manager is sort -of an organizer -of all the other departments." .Miss Jourard, who started in the theatre when she was 14 years old, grew up in a faMilV who were' always involved in amateur theatre. Managing After acting for awhile, Miss Jourard decided her interests primarily lay in stage managing, and so she started working behind the scenes., Tigger Jourard, Stage Manager After finishing university, she spent a year at the National Theatre School in Montreal and has been working in a variety of backstage jobs ever since. Miss Jourard spent last summer at the Peterborough Summer Festival, a theatre which is now defunct. The Peterborough. company also specialized in produeing homegrown Canadian plays; but ran into problems with funding. This summer., Miss Jourard has been stage managing The Huron Tiger and the upcoming production of Givendoline. Her first (tiny \ellen a play goes into production is to sit down with the director and to make yip the prompt book - 'the bible of the show" - from the script. The prompt book includes the blocking of the plays. the actors' cues, the entrances and exits, special effects, the props needed during the play and everything• else required for the production of the show. After the first few weeks of rehearsal, the cast goes into production week..By this time, the set should be up on stage, and painted; the lighting is installed and the actors are performing in their costumes and makeup to get accustomed to the finished product. Smoothly Miss Jourard said by opening night, the show is now in the stage manager's hands completely - she must call the shots and make sure the show runs smoothly. If the stage manager and backstage crew are successful, Miss Jourard said, "you should notice nothing of the technical side (of the production.)" Although she admits, "we don't get roses over the footlights," the satisfaction comes in knowing the show has gone well. Miss. Jourard, who worked in Toronto with the Judy Jarvis Dance Festival and has toured with the Leah Posluns Theatre, is enjoying her summer in Blyth, which she finds "has a lovely sense of community." When the Blyth season is over, Miss Jourard is off to Winnipeg, to Work on the Winnipeg Contemporary Dancers tour. Pat Flood, the Blyth Festival set and costume designer, is a jack-of-all trades who has worked at the Tyrone Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, the St. Lawrence Centre in. Toronto and as an assistant to the designer at the Stratford Festival. When her job at Blyth finishes, she will become the resident designer at Theatre Calgary, Designing "Designing," said Pat, "isn't just doing the pictures and going away." Right now, Pat has just finished designing the sets for The School Show, the one-man performance by Ted Johns, and for Gwendoline, the James Nichol play set in the small town of Kingsforks in 1907. Miss Flood starts the design process by reading the show's script over several times to get a feeling for the characters and the play's setting. Then she starts by making a scale model of the set, working from her permanent model of the Blyth. theatre stage. Miss Flood's set must be detailed right down to miniature models of the chairs or tables required as props, because other members of the technical crew will use the model when they go out to hunt for the type of furniture shown.. The set must provide the rest of the crew with a detailed pattern to follow in preparing for the show. Very Closely.- Miss Flood said she works very, very closely with •the director in preparing a show, and that it is "an equal partner relationship," Since the Blyth season is so short, Miss Flood has had to design sets for the next two productions in a week, a chore which has meant a number of 14 to 16 hour days. Set designers arc usually given at least two to three weeks to work on a show. After completing her model for the set. Miss Flood drafts up the design for the theatre carpenter, so he can start con- structing the set immediately. Since the Blyth Festival runs five shows, alternating performances, the technical crew must store all the sets behind the one 'the audience sees on stage. The set designer said this causes "incredible problems" and means the sets must be constructed so they can fold down flat between shows. As well as designing the set and costumes for each show, Pat Flood also paints all the sets. For example, the wallpaper on The Huron Tiger set was all painted by Miss Flood with stencils, a slow and painstaking process. Another of the set designer's duties is to "break down" props in the set, a kind of instant antiquing to make the props and costumes look old and well-worn. After . Pat Flood has sketched the costume designs for a show, she works closely with Kathryn Kiernan-Molloy, officially billed as the theatre's "cutter", but in reality a wardrobe co-ordinator with a number of duties. Researches Pat Flood researches the kind of clothes worn in the particular period of each play from a number of her costume reference books like The Cut of Men's Clothes By Norah. Waugh. Then she presents Miss Kiernan-Molloy with a watercolor sketch of the costumes and the wardrobe co-ordinator takes the drawing to "make it work, make it happen." Costuming actors who will be working under bright footlights is far more complex than choosing a wardrobe under ordinary conditions. For example, the color white washes out on the stage, so off-white materials must be used.' Also, the colours used in costumes can be far wilder, since they "won't read so brightly or wildly on stage," said Miss Kiernon-Molloy. Putting together the costumes for a show requires a lot of "rooting around" - everywhere from Salvation Army stores to costume and material stores in Toronto to the mills at Hespeler, One reason the set designer and wardrobe co-ordintor tenditoreturn to Toronto on their buying trips, is because there are "very cheap places (for material) which are used to dealing with' theatres." - - However, many of the other purchases of trimmings, small props and material are made in the local area. After Kathryn Kiernan-Molloy has decided which costumes must be made from scratch and which can be made from costumes in stock, she sets to work. First, she cuts a pattern on the flat and then makes up a model of the costume in muslin which will be used in the first fittings with the actors. - Character Although Miss Kiernan-Molloy has elaborate measurements for each actor's figure, in making a costume she is often more interested in the character which is being created, than in an exact fit for the actor. After the costume adjustments have been made on paper and the muslin model, Miss Kiernan-Molloy cuts out and sews the costume from the material which will be seen on stage. For Gwendoline, the play set in the early 1900's, one of the challenges facing Miss Kiernan-Molloy has been re-creating a corset. She researched the corset styles in a book titled Corset and Crinolines and brought back the bones from her buying trip in Toronto. When cutting out the costumes, Miss' Kiernan-Molloy must always be conscious of the fact the costumes will be worn during a performance, and that they must be comfortable for the actors to move about in. Period Underwear Pat Flood said many actors insist on authenticity, to the extent of demanding period underwear to match their costumes. Since locating period shoes proves to be more difficult than finding period'clothes, the wardrobe co-ordinator often has to alter shoes to match the styles of a certain period, This can he done by changing the heel height and altering the shape with a glue gun, a prime tool of the backstage crew. But even when the costumes are finished and being worn on stage, the process isn't complete. This week the wardrobe co- ordinator is re-dyeing many of the outfits worn in The Huron Tiger, 'which have , faded from continual washing. The one production which proved a little more relaxing to costume was His Own Boss, since many of the contemporary clothes were bought in a discount house in Toronto and will be sold to the cast at the end of the season. Don't understand If Miss Kiernan-Molloy has any com- plaint about her work, it's that "people don't understand or don't realize the work involved." She said many people view a cutter as a seamstress, when in fact, it is a highly specialized profession. The wardrobe co-ordinator specialized in costume design at York University and this fall, she plans to go to England, hoping to work in theatre there. While Pat Flood and Kathryn Kiernan- Molloy wish audiences were more aware of their roles behind the scenes, the backstage world is where they intend to stay. 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